


Magnum Opus: "Lead on Tanks"

by uboat53



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afghanistan, Comedy, Conspiracy Theories, Humor, Military, Music Theory, Original Character(s), Taliban - Freeform, Tank - Freeform, Tricked Out Houseboat, US Army, Unflappable Captain, feral sniper - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 00:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15983939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uboat53/pseuds/uboat53
Summary: Adam Hernandez arrives at Epsilon-Zeta (E-Z) Company in Afghanistan where their mission is to track down insurgents.  Before long, they run into Saif and Abdul-Aziz, two Taliban soldiers who have managed to get a tank for reasons that could never be sufficiently explained before a court of inquiry.  Can they accomplish their mission enough under budget to leave enough money for a tricked out houseboat?“Hernandez,” Perchevsky said, turning to him, “What kind of training have you had?”“Rifleman and squad support, sir,” he replied.“Good, you’re on the Humvee gun,” Perchevsky said with a pleased grin, “Haven’t had anyone to man the thing since Habissen bought it.”“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hernandez said.“Sorry to hear what?” Perchevsky asked, confusion mixing with his pleasant smile as he started to towel himself off.“About Habissen, sir.”“Oh, you thought he died,” Perchevsky exclaimed, his face brightening in sudden realization, “No, I meant he bought a nice house on a lake in Poland.  Beautiful views.  We’re planning to get a houseboat there.”Hernandez just blinked in surprise, he wasn’t sure what to say to that.  Dazed, he finished his coffee and headed out to the Humvee.





	Magnum Opus: "Lead on Tanks"

            Private Adam Hernandez leaned over to look out the window of the helicopter as it sped across the Afghan countryside.  Bagram Air Force Base had faded from view a few hours ago and the last signs of major civilization had disappeared an hour or two after that.  Every now and then a small cluster of huts would break up the rugged mountains that rolled by below him, but they were truly in the back country now and still going.

            “Where did you say this place was again?” Hernandez shouted to the helicopter crewman next to him.

            “Fuck if I know,” the man shouted back, “Boss tells us to fly on this heading for a few hours, drop you off, and come right back, I don’t ask why.”

            Hernandez leaned back in his seat.  He was kitted out with full gear; rifle, sidearm, harness, body armor, helmet, and a full duffel on the seat across from him.  He’d gotten used to the weight of it in training, but it was awkward to sit in for so long and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get back up again when they got to where they were going.

            He was still exhausted from the time difference, he’d come straight to Kabul from Fort Jackson four days ago and that wasn’t enough time to fully adjust.  It was pretty warm in the helicopter, especially under all his gear, and before he knew it, the crewman was shaking him awake.

            “Get your ass up, we’re here,” the crewman growled at him.

            Still groggy, Hernandez pulled himself out of the chair with a little assisting pull from the crewman, grabbed his duffel and made his way to the open door.

            The helicopter was just a few feet of the ground, spraying dust and debris in all directions from it.  As he looked around from the door, he spotted very little that looked like much of anything.  There was barren rock and the occasional scraggly tree.  There was even barren rock that stuck up vertically at random locations and seemed to form some kind of terrifyingly cubist spectacle that he wasn’t nearly in the headspace to ponder at the moment.

            “Are you sure this is…” he started.

            The crewman shoved him hard in the back and that is how Private Adam Hernandez of Jerome, Idaho and the U.S. Army ended up face down on a barren rock in the middle of Afghanistan with the sound of a departing helicopter filling his ears.  It had been an eventful week.

 

* * *

 

            The sound of the helicopter had faded to a dull hum before Hernandez collected himself enough to do something about his situation.  Still groggy, he picked himself off and began to spit sand out of his mouth.  He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten any sand in his mouth, the rocks around here seemed to be bare of anything resembling sand, but there it was.  He dusted himself off and took a look around.

            There was, if anything, less to see from outside the helicopter than there had been from inside it.  He had been told he was going to an outpost of some kind, but there didn’t even seem to be anyone here.  He was about to pick up his things and try to head for higher ground when he noticed the half-eaten corpse of an animal of some kind.  There were no flies buzzing around it and it looked like a fresh kill.  He looked around, but, seeing no sign of a predator nearby, he approached it.

            It looked like it had been chewed on recently, but it didn’t look like any of the wolf kills he’d seen out in the mountains growing up.  He was still examining it closely when he had the sudden sensation of being watched.

            He slowly stood up and turned to his right where he saw what he assumed to be a man in somewhat passable U.S. Army fatigues.  The man was dirty and looked like he hadn’t shaved in…  well… ever.  In fact, the more Hernandez looked at him, the less sure he was that language was an appropriate method of communicating.  Suppressing the urge to begin by grunting and pointing, he spoke up.

            “Um, are you part of Epsilon-Zeta Company by any chance?”

            The man grunted in return.  Hernandez wasn’t sure whether that meant ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or even corresponded to any sort of communication method at all, but he continued on undaunted.

            “I’m supposed to join Epsilon-Zeta Company,” he tried, “I’ve got my orders if you want to see them.”

            “Drn thll,” the man grunted in what Hernandez assumed was a valiant attempt to form words into sentences.  A failed attempt, but valiant nonetheless.

            “Sorry, what was that?”

            “Drn th ll,” this time it was clear that there was supposed to be some kind of separation between the “th” and the “ll”, and Hernandez even thought he noticed an attempt at nodding or directional advice with head movement happening.  It still wasn’t clear, but he was making progress.

            “Um, can you repeat that one more time?”

            “Drn th ill,” the man repeated with increasing frustration, bobbing his head furiously in the direction behind Hernandez.

            “Down the hill?” Hernandez said, pointing behind him as the meaning suddenly occurred to him.

            “Hm-mm,” the man said impatiently in what Hernandez could only assume to be an affirmative response.  Hernandez got the feeling that the man really wanted him to go, so he hefted his duffel over his shoulder and started down.

            He took a few steps in that direction and then turned around.  The man had taken a few steps toward the carcass of the…  whatever it was…  but had frozen as soon as Hernandez had looked at him.  He had a look that, for some reason, reminded Hernandez of a small child who wasn’t sure if you were going to touch the toy he was playing with, but was damned sure he was going to murder you in your sleep if you did.

            “Are you going to…” he started, then paused.  He wasn’t sure he would find this outpost, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted this man with him either.  “Never mind.”

            With that, he turned and headed down the hill as the man had instructed.  Behind him he could hear what he thought might be crunching and slurping but decided he wasn’t ready to think about that at the moment, so he continued on his way and tried to observe something profound in the pitiful trees that stuck at right angles from vertical rock sections.

 

* * *

 

            At the bottom of the hill, nestled in a small nook between craggy rocks, he found what actually looked like a habitable tent structure.  It was almost idyllic, really.  At the bottom of the chasm a small stream wound its way to somewhere and a few green plants grew on its shore.  The outpost was covered with camouflaged netting and he could see how it would be hard to spot from any sort of distance.

            There was only one thing wrong with the scene in front of him, he couldn’t imagine any good (or even bad) reason why you would set up your outpost with a stream running directly through it.  Still, it looked better than his experience for the last few hours, so he shrugged and stepped through the entrance flap.

            It was quiet inside, the wind that whistled through the canyon was absent here and the stream was gently with only a faint trickling sound that inspired in Hernandez a vague desire to urinate.  There was a Humvee parked near the entrance with one tire in the middle of the small stream and a man was leaned into the open hood with small clanking sounds indicating that he was fixing something.

            Feeling a bit more at home now, it almost reminded him of Fort Jackson, he approached the mechanic.

             “Excuse me…” he began before he was violently interrupted.

            The mechanic bolted up from where he was leaned so rapidly that he slammed his head on the raised hood.  Hernandez cringed back as the man continued to flail, sending parts and tools flying in all directions in what, had it been on purpose, would have given Buster Keaton’s best comedy routines a run for their money.

            When the noise finally subsided, Hernandez looked up to find the mechanic, a sergeant he realized looking at the rank tab on his chest, holding a shotgun and a rather large wrench and staring at him menacingly.

             “Who are you with?” the sergeant demanded before Hernandez could say a word, “The Illuminati?  The Secret Service?  What’s this all about?  The Kennedy Assassination?  DB Cooper?  Guy Fawkes?”

            Hernandez was bewildered by the sudden onslaught, he spent a brief moment trying to figure out what the Secret Service might have had to do with Guy Fawkes before realizing that it was probably fruitless.  Of course, by then the sergeant was advancing on him with the wrench raised threateningly.

             “You’ll never get anything from me, you hear,” the man growled as he approached, “I’ll ask you one more time, who sent you?”

            Hernandez looked down and back up quickly.  Yup, he was still wearing his uniform.

             “The US Army?” he offered hesitantly.

             “I knew it!” the sergeant exclaimed, “Here to get me because I figured out Agent Orange!”

             “What’s going on out there Jacobson,” a voice came from the back of the tent.  The sergeants’ head whipped around to the newcomer and the wrench and shotgun dropped slowly.  Hernandez looked over to see a tall, well-built captain strolling over, almost casually.  He seemed blissfully unware that the sergeant was threatening anyone with more than one weapon.

             “This guy’s here from the US Army,” the sergeant said, “I was just makin’ sure he wasn’t gonna cause trouble.”

             “Well done Jacobson,” the captain said, gently taking the shotgun out of his hands, “but I’ll take care of it from here.”

             “Are you sure sir?” the sergeant asked, glancing sideways at Hernandez, “He says he’s from the Army.”

             “I’m sure he is,” the captain replied with a polite smile, “I’ll make sure he’s got his affairs in order.”

             “All right,” the sergeant said reluctantly, “But you let me know if you need any assistance.”

             “Of course Jacobson,” the captain said, nodding politely.

            Still keeping a suspicious eye on Hernandez, the sergeant returned to his work, and Hernandez straightened to face the captain.

             “So, what brings you out here private?” the captain asked, placing the shotgun gently on a nearby tool chest and acting as if nothing at all in the world could be the matter.

            Hernandez looked over at the sergeant to assure himself that something had indeed happened.  The sergeant returned his look with a somewhat crazed one and Hernandez quickly turned back to the captain who remained standing in front of him with a pleasant smile.

             “Um, my orders captain,” he dug into his pack and produced his papers for the captain.  He stood straight at attention as the captain read through them.

             “Well, this all seems to be in order,” the captain said as he finished reading the second page and handed the papers back to Hernandez, “I’m Captain Perchevsky, commander of this little outpost here, and you’ve already met Sergeant Jacobson, our mechanic.”

            He gestured back at the sergeant who was still staring at Hernandez with a wild look in his eyes.

             “Don’t mind him,” Captain Perchevsky said pleasantly as he turned to lead Hernandez deeper into the outpost, “He’s just a little on edge because the Federal Reserve meeting minutes came out today.”

             “I tell you they’re funding research to turn us all back into monkeys,” Jacobson growled as they passed through a tent flap and into another section of the outpost.

            The back section of the outpost wasn’t all the much bigger than the front.  A row of cots were lined up along one wall and a single shower and sink on the other.  The room was completed by a table in the middle with a few chairs around it where three men were playing cards.

             “Show me your cards Wu,” one of the men was saying, “I don’t think you can beat my straight flush.”

             “Damn it Rodriguez,” the other replied, “I swear the scorpions must be helping you with that kind of luck.”

             “At ease gentlemen,” the captain announced as if they had reacted to his presence at all, “We’ve got a new recruit in the ranks.”

            The three men looked up from their table at him.  One of them, Rodriguez apparently, looked him up and down cautiously.

             “Doesn’t look like a scorpion to me,” he said to Wu.

             “They never do,” Wu said slowly.

             “This is Private Hernandez,” Captain Perchevsky announced pleasantly, “He’s been assigned to our little outpost for the next few months.  Hernandez, this is specialists Rodriguez and Martins, and Private Wu.”

             “Good to meet you private,” Martins said with a friendly wave.  He had a white armband with a red cross on it, he must be the medic.

             “Oh yes,” Captain Perchevsky said, starting as he remembered something, “Before I forget, Rodriguez, there’s been no word yet on the investigation.”

             “What investigation?” Hernandez blurted.

             “It’s nothing,” the captain answered with a pleasant smile, “Just an incident involving an army jeep in Kabul on his last leave.”

             “Would have worked too if I’d had some peanuts,” Rodriguez muttered.

             “I still say your mistake was letting the hooker hold the marshmallows,” Wu put in.

             “I had to keep both hands on the flashlight,” Rodriguez replied.

            Hernandez glanced back and forth at the two, but no more detail was forthcoming.  Deciding that it wasn’t worth further inquiry, he sat down on a chair and tossed his duffel in the general direction of the cots.  He’d been here less than an hour and he’d already met a man who looked feral, one who seemed to subscribe to every known conspiracy theory as well as a few new ones, a man under a very confusing investigation of some sort, and a man who didn’t seem to think that any of this was unusual.  Oh yes, and Wu’s earlier comment about Scorpions.

With just a small spark of hope left, he decided to try his luck with Martins.

             “So Martins, you know your way around a bandage?” he asked.

             “I like to think so,” Martins replied.

             “Just don’t start bleeding,” Rodriguez put in.

             “Can’t stand the sight of blood,” Martin added, “One of these days someone will come to me with a civilized non-bleeding injury.”

            Hernandez’s heart sank.  Not only was the last person at this outpost insane, he figured his odds of surviving any kind of injury had just dropped low enough that he fully expected to strike oil.  What a day.

 

* * *

 

            Abdul-aziz wasn’t having a very good time.  He’d only just arrived in this region, having been sent by Mullah Omar himself.  He wasn’t sure why he was sent here, there didn’t seem to be any people living here.  Come to think of it, there weren’t any resources of any kind either.  Nor was there any strategic value.

            Of course, that wasn’t the worst of it.  He’d arrived to join the previous holding force, Saif bin Tawfiq, whose pakol was shoved in his face and inspiring in him the very undignified urge to sneeze.

            The reason why Saif’s pakol was shoved in his face was the very top of the mountain: somehow he had gotten his hands on a tank!  Abdul-aziz didn’t know how Saif had gotten his hands on a tank, to tell the truth, he wasn’t sure the man knew himself, but the two of them were jammed into the tiny compartment of a Soviet T-55 tank which Saif was driving to…  well, Abdul-aziz really had no idea where Saif was going.

             “Where are we going?” he shouted over the loud rumbling and clattering of the tank.

             “God will show the way,” Saif shouted back, barely loud enough to be heard over the engine.

            That was the other thing.  Saif was a fanatic.

            Abdul-aziz considered himself to be a pious man.  A member of the Taliban since he was only sixteen, he performed his prayers five times a day and contributed his alms to the poor.  He supported the tenets of Sharia Law and was married with a family.

            Saif was different, one of those who people referred to as touched, and not in the way Abdul-aziz had imagined.  Saif touched his nose with his tongue every time he said someone’s name, and he had the smell of someone who had given up on mint.  Most infuriating of all was his complete lack of acceptance that Abdul-aziz was in charge.  He had just opened the hatch to let Abdul-aziz in and then continued driving to wherever it was that he was going without a word.

            Abdul-aziz still wasn’t even sure where Saif had gotten the tank in the first place.  It seemed to be in good shape, but the Soviets had pulled out almost twenty years ago.  Had he been driving this thing around this whole time?  And where did he get an intact one?  The only tanks Abdul-aziz had seen outside the American’s hands were blasted hulks, usually on the side of the road.

             “You need to stop,” Abdul-aziz shouted at Saif again, “We shouldn’t waste all our fuel before we figure out where we’re going!”

             “God will provide,” Saif replied calmly, again without turning around.

             “God provides those who prepare,” Abdul-aziz insisted, shifting around in the cramped space so he could lean farther over Saif’s shoulder and see out the front hatch of the tank, “The Taliban conquered Afghanistan because it took care to provide for itself.  When God calls on us, he expects us to come prepared, not to blunder into his work.”

             “God will provide,” Saif replied again, still not turning to look at Abdul-aziz.

            From his new position, Abdul-aziz could see the depressing view out the window.  Nothing like the broad plains and green riverbanks of home, they were driving through what seemed to be a never ending series of barren canyons enclosed by sheer and bare rock.  It was possibly the most depressing place he could imagine, although he imagined that the rest of his situation wasn’t helping his evaluation of the place.

             “If you don’t stop this tank right now I will be forced to report you to Taliban command,” Abdul-aziz insisted, “We should be reserving our resources for the moment when we can strike decisively against the Americans and the infidels in the government.  We should not be wasting fuel driving around aimless…”

            As he was about to finish the last word, he suddenly came up short.  As they came around another curve in the canyon, a fuel tanker truck came into view.  The flag of the heretic Afghan government was painted on the side of the truck and the driver was jumping around with a cell phone trying to get reception.  Obviously a fuel shipment that had gotten lost from the main roads.

             “God will provide,” Saif said, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.

            Abdul-aziz groaned.

 

* * *

 

            Hernandez awakened with a start.  For a moment, he was completely disoriented.  Then he remembered where he was.

            He sat up with a groan, from the light glowing through the tent walls he had either not been asleep for very long or had slept an entire day.  He ran his hand over his face, the stubble said it was probably the latter.

            Wu, Martins, and Rodriguez were still at the table playing cards.  Nothing else in the room had moved either.  Maybe they were just messing with him, making him think nothing had changed in the time he’d been asleep.  Ugh, he needed some coffee, he was becoming as paranoid as these people.  Maybe it was something in the water, except that he hadn’t had any.

He stood up and poured some coffee from the pot in the corner.  He hadn’t really thought about it before, but caffeine seemed to have replaced nicotine as the drug of choice in the military.  Even in the most rugged places where you could barely get water, you could get coffee.

            It wasn’t until he’d nearly finished his mug that he realized that not everything in the room was as it had been when he’d fallen asleep, Captain Perchevsky was in the shower.  It seemed the captain realized he was awake around the same time.

             “Ah, Hernandez, you’re awake,” the captain said with a pleasant smile, “I hope the jet lag isn’t hitting you too hard.”

             “No sir,” he replied, almost spilling coffee on himself, “Feeling a lot better now.”

            Perchevsky opened his mouth again, but before he could say anything he was interrupted by the sound of someone rushing through the tent flap.  The stench of rotting marshmallows followed the feral soldier he’d met at the drop site by a few seconds.  For a moment, he wondered why anyone would smell like rotting marshmallows or whether marshmallows could even rot.  He shook his head; it must have something to do with Rodriguez’s thing.

             “Thr ata kou thr,” the feral soldier shouted, pointing excitedly out of the tent.

             “A tank?” Perchevsky exclaimed.  Maybe one could grow to understand that babble in time?  “Where?”

             “Ab ti klsth,” the feral soldier mumbled.  He had to have been a normal human at some point, right?  The army did let him in after all.

             “Right,” Perchevsky said stepping, still dripping, out of the shower and grabbing a towel, “Wu, help Jacobson get the Humvee ready to go.  Rodriguez, grab whatever it is you grab to blow up a tank.  Martins, grab your medical supplies.  Chillingsworth, head back out and let us know if it’s getting too close.”

            Chillingsworth?  The feral guy’s name was Chillingsworth?  For a moment, he had an image of the man sitting in an opulent English manor house drinking tea in a proper fashion as the smell filled the house.  The image was only there for a second as the tent suddenly burst into a frenzy of activity.  Wu and Chillingsworth were gone in a flash and Rodriguez and Martins were digging through the piles of stuff in the other corner.

             “Hernandez,” Perchevsky said, turning to him, “What kind of training have you had?”

             “Rifleman and squad support, sir,” he replied.

             “Good, you’re on the Humvee gun,” Perchevsky said with a pleased grin, “Haven’t had anyone to man the thing since Habissen bought it.”

             “I’m sorry to hear that,” Hernandez said.

             “Sorry to hear what?” Perchevsky asked, confusion mixing with his pleasant smile as he started to towel himself off.

             “About Habissen, sir.”

             “Oh, you thought he died,” Perchevsky exclaimed, his face brightening in sudden realization, “No, I meant he bought a nice house on a lake in Poland.  Beautiful views.  We’re planning to get a houseboat there.”

            Hernandez just blinked in surprise, he wasn’t sure what to say to that.  Dazed, he finished his coffee and headed out to the Humvee.

 

* * *

 

            After calming Jacobson down from his, in retrospect inevitable, paranoid episode which involved Wu and Hernandez gently talking him down with a screwdriver and a handful of packaging peanuts Hernandez found himself back in his body armor in the machine gun turret of the Humvee as the other piled into the back.

            It was exhilarating.  He was a soldier now, everything he’d dreamed of through high school was finally coming true.  He almost forgot to duck as they passed through the front of the outpost tent and then took a scraggly tree branch to the head as he looked back at the low entryway.  That wasn’t a problem, it turned out it was easier to be exhilarated while slightly dazed.

            His exhilaration faded as they drove onward through the winding and barren canyons and he listened to Captain Perchevsky’s pep talk.

             “All right boys, listen up,” he was saying, “We’ve got a tank out there to take care of, but remember when you’re firing those guns that those things can be expensive.  Every bullet is a quarter that won’t go to the houseboat.  Hernandez, Chillingsworth, yours are almost a full dollar each.  So hold your fire unless it’s really necessary.  That could be the difference between getting the LX package or having to settle for the LE.”

            Hernandez had no idea what he was talking about but the groans from the others let him know that it was serious.  He didn’t have long to think about it, though, as it quickly became clear that they were lost and trying to get directions from Chillingsworth.

             “Right at the lizard?” Perchevsky was saying into the radio, “I don’t see the lizard Chillingsworth, is there another landmark I should look for?  No, I don’t see the rock that looks like your mother either.”

            The Humvee hit a large rock and Hernandez flailed trying to keep his balance up in the turret.

             “I see the lizard!” Martins shouted.

             “Great, turn right,” Perchevsky directed.

            They wandered this way for quite some time, Hernandez flailing every time they hit something big.  He wasn’t used to off-roading, in basic they’d only ever used a Humvee on a nice, flat road.  When they finally emerged from the canyon system Hernandez had to shield his eyes it was so bright.  Deep in the canyons he had forgotten what direct sunlight was like and it took his eyes a moment to adjust.

            When they did, he took in a wide and open landscape.  If anything, it was more barren here than it had been back in the canyon, but with the addition of sand to patches of bare rock.  Here and there was a small dust devil, but there was practically nothing to break up the landscape that stretched all the way to the dim outlines of mountains in the distance.

            He clutched the edge of the turret again as the Humvee took a hard left turn and followed along the edge of the rocky outcropping.

             “Get ready boys,” Perchevsky said, “Chillingsworth says it’s only two more clicks along the rock, then right into the next canyon.”

            He could hear weapons being readied below and chambered the next round in his heavy machine gun.  All of a sudden he could feel his heartbeat in his skull.  It had felt a little exciting before, but now it was overwhelming.  He could feel every small bump in the road in excruciating detail over the next two kilometers until they reached the opening to the next canyon.

            This time he was ready, he hung on as the Humvee turned hard to the left into the canyon.  The world went dark again as the sun disappeared behind the high walls of the canyon.  Hernandez’s brain reeled for a second as it tried to put together the unfamiliar scene he was seeing.  It was a sudden realization when he figured out that he was looking at a tank and that the reason he couldn’t see the long barrel of the gun was because it was pointed right at them.

            He wasn’t sure why, but at that moment when he should have crapped his pants in terror he simply let out a weary sigh.  Of course it would be.

 

* * *

 

            Abdul-aziz had been trying to catch some sleep in the back of the tank.  It wasn’t easy, the middle of the day was always the hottest and the tank seemed to just suck up the heat.  Add to that the fact that Saif wouldn’t stop his damned muttering.

            After four hours he just gave up, squeezing himself down out of the turret and into the main compartment to try to get away from Saif.  It was a bit more roomy down here, but not much.  He was beginning to think that the Soviets had had midgets in mind when they designed this thing.

            Pushing his way into the driver’s chair, he let himself sink into the moderately more comfortable position with a weary sigh.  Down here Saif’s muttering was little more than a dull background noise, and he let his eyes wander.

            The controls of the tank were pretty minimal, two levers to control the treads, a fuel gauge, and a couple of knobs and buttons that Abdul-aziz hadn’t figured out yet.  Saif drove the tank most of the time, so it wasn’t a huge priority for him to figure out.  The fuel gauge was near the top and they’d hidden the fuel truck in the canyons after depositing the drivers at the nearest road.  At the rate they were going, that one truck could keep them fueled for at least a year.

            With little to keep his attention inside the tank, his eyes wandered to the small porthole that peered into the outside world.  It was interesting, he now realized, that he’d spent more time since he came to this place inside the tank than out of it, seeing the province and its barren canyons and American Humvees only through this little pinhole.

            Perhaps he should take some time to appreciate the beauty of this place.  After all, it wasn’t as if there was a lot for him to do here.  For some reason that thought itched at the back of his mind, but he wasn’t sure why.

            Getting out of the tank would probably be good for his sanity, too.  He was starting to wonder if the reason Saif was so irritating was that they were trapped in this small space.  Anyone would be annoying then, wouldn’t they?  Maybe if he got some time outside he would find Saif to be a more congenial companion.

            He took his eyes off the canyon and the Humvee and glanced back up at the turret.  He could still hear Saif muttering.  Okay, maybe he wouldn’t go that far, but at least this posting could be more bearable.

            He blinked suddenly in surprise.  There was something wrong with what he had been thinking, but he couldn’t quite think of what it might be.  Something about the landscape?

            He jumped up so suddenly that he cracked his head painfully on the ceiling, there was an American Humvee out there!

             “Saif, get the gun ready!” he shouted up to the turret, holding his head and wincing in pain, “Americans!”

            He looked down at the driver’s controls, this couldn’t be that hard, right?  Did he even really need to do anything right now?  Saif would just aim the turret and…  the turret wasn’t moving.

             “Saif, did you hear me?”

            The man was still continuing his muttering as before, droning on as if Abdul-aziz hadn’t said a word.  Still holding his head, Abdul-aziz squeezed out of the driver’s chair and back up into the turret.  Saif was still there, standing right in front of the turret with a far away look on his head as he muttered whatever it was he was muttering.

             “Are you trying to get us killed?” Abdul-aziz screamed at him, “Get the turret ready and let’s finish those Americans before they finish us!”

            Saif didn’t move.  Gritting his teeth, Abdul-aziz pushed his way into the cramped turret compartment.  Between the racks of tank shells at the back and the breech loading cannon that protruded almost a full meter into the turret, there wasn’t much room to move.  Saif sitting in the middle of it muttering with that stupid look on his face wasn’t helping much either.

            Slowly, Abdul-aziz screwed open the firing chamber and confirmed that there was a shell present.  Screwing it shut again, he suddenly realized that he had no idea where the firing control was or even what it looked like.  Was it a stick, a button, a lever?  He searched around frantically and prayed that the Americans hadn’t gotten very far.

 

* * *

 

            Hernandez and the others had been waiting for a full minute now.  They hadn’t moved and the tank hadn’t moved either.  He wasn’t sure what they were doing in there, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain or try to complicate the situation.

             “What are they doing?” Wu asked finally.

             “Just messing with our heads,” Jacobson responded slowly, “I say we put this thing in reverse and get the hell out of here.”

             “Are you crazy?” Martins exclaimed, “They might shoot us if we do that!”

             “Hernandez,” Captain Perchevsky said, quietly but commandingly, “You can get out from the turret without alerting them.  Try to slip around and see what they might be up to.”

            Hernandez blinked in surprise, looking back up at the tank.  He had thought himself the most exposed up in the turret, but he guessed he _was_ the only one of them who could get out without opening a door.

            Feeling a bit like a worm, he started to inch his way out of the turret without being too obvious about it.  For some reason the Star Wars line “fly casual” popped into his mind and he felt like he should stick his hands in his pockets and whistle nonchalantly.  He cursed as he banged his knees on the lip of the turret, he hadn’t realized how hard it was to move slowly while keeping your eyes on the open barrel of a tank cannon before; he wasn’t sure why he would have thought about it before, but all of a sudden he really wished he had.

            And then suddenly, without warning, he was sideways.  His legs came free of the turret in one effortless pull and he was flying, end over end, down the back end of the Humvee, feeling a bit like a ballet dancer whose dance has suddenly become a bobsled competition.  Flailing his limbs gracelessly and bouncing several times over the rear of the Humvee, he found himself lying facedown on a barren rock in the middle of Afghanistan for the second time in twenty-four hours.

            He spit out a few grains of sands while he collected his wits to him, but that process was interrupted by a loud explosion that pounded the air from his lungs.  It echoed in the small canyon for what seemed like an eternity and his ears were ringing long after the sound of it had faded.  Hernandez was afraid to look up; he was pretty sure all he would see was a smoldering pile of rubble and melted tires where the Humvee had been.

 

* * *

 

             “What did you just do?” Saif demanded angrily, looking up for the first time in hours.

Abdul-aziz ignored him and his demanding tone.  Here he was trying to deal with the Americans who had suddenly shown up on their doorstep without any warning while Saif was sleeping or whatever it was he was doing and the man had the gall to question him?  It wasn’t his fault that he had missed.

            He was still not sure how that had happened.  One moment he’d been looking out the main window with the barrel of the main gun pointed directly at the American Humvee, the next moment he had pulled the trigger and watched a large rock with a momentarily surprised bird perched on it disappear in a rather loud puff of smoke.  He was still trying to work out how that had happened.

             “Move aside,” Saif grumbled, pushing Abdul-aziz out of the way and grabbing at levers.

            The turret rotated as he moved.  Unfortunately, the piece of ground that Abdul-aziz was standing on wasn’t a part of the turret, so he stayed still as a box that surely contained something important spun around and beaned him in the head.

            He fell down into the main compartment of the tank, clutching his head and swearing oaths that generally were intended to call down the full wrath of Allah on Saif as he went.  As he lay, feet up in the air and his shoulders wedged back in between some pipes, he felt the tank accelerate.  For a moment, he panicked; there was no one at the controls!  Then he realized that Saif must have some kind of controls up in the turret as well, that goat lover!

            Grunting and ignoring the dull ache in his head, Abdul-aziz pulled himself up.  Saif was running away from the fight, he was sure of it!  All these years in a backwards province, far away from the enemy had made him soft.  It was up to Abdul-aziz to seize the controls and take the fight to the Americans!

            A sudden swerve to the right made him stagger, but he pushed through and lowered himself into the driver’s seat.  From here he could see out the forward porthole, or, more accurately, he would have been able to see out the forward porthole if it wasn’t for a rather large rock that had become lodged in it.  Probably a fragment from the larger rock he’d shot earlier.  Grumbling, he opened the hatch above the driver’s compartment and stuck his head out.

He’d seen videos of the Soviets doing this before, looking majestic as they stood up in the hatches of their tanks and maneuvered them in great square blocks during the parades.  His own experience, however, was a bit less majestic.

            To start with, the hatch was somewhat stuck, forcing him to lie down on his back and kick up at it just to get it open.  When it did open, a shower of rust shavings dropped down on him, getting in his eyes and his mouth.  Scrubbing the rust away with his sleeve, he still had hope that, at least once he stuck his head outside, he might be able to regain his lost dignity.

            The wind was strong when he finally stood up fully, nearly blowing his pakol clean off and he leaned into the wind with one hand keeping the woolen covering on top of his head.  He thought he cut quite a majestic figure standing out of the porthole of the tank, at least until the bird showed up.

            He wasn’t sure if it was the same bird that was standing on the rock he’d blown up or perhaps a friend of that one, but it certainly seemed to have a grudge against him.  It crashed wildly straight into his face, clawing and scratching as it flailed about wildly.  For his own part, he spun his arms wildly around and flopped around crazily.  The tank was also throwing up a ton of dust, and, while he would have thought that one good breath of the stuff would have been enough to make any thinking person give it up for good, he kept breathing it until he was sputtering and coughing and he was pretty sure his lungs were thinking up a horrible fate for him in retaliation.

            It was an entertaining thought, and far more pleasant than his actual experience, so he pictured his lungs coming out of his body and strangling him as he tried to swat away the bird and retreat inside the tank.  He should have stuck to bicycle repair like his father had told him to.

 

* * *

 

            Hernandez did finally look up, after what seemed like a long time listening to the sounds of the wind, the diminishing echo of the huge blast, and, oddly enough, the sounds of more than one vehicle driving around at high speed through the canyon.  He did not see what he was expecting.

            The ground in front of him was empty; pieces of shattered rocks littered the ground amid a pair of tire tracks that didn’t stop where he expected them to.  A bit farther away, the tank that they had seen was careening around the canyon crazily, one of the crew members sticking out of the forward hatch.  Chasing it, or perhaps running away from it, it was difficult to tell, was a Humvee.  It took him a moment to realize that it was the same Humvee that he had just fallen off the back of.

            In an instant, two things in his mind were set off at once.  The army training part of his brain kicked in and he dropped to one knee and his rifle was at his cheek, sighting down the barrel at the tank.  Meanwhile, the part of his brain that had been off on a drunken rager since the day he left his high school band decided to pick its’ head up from its’ drunken slumber and wax poetic about the amusing musical sounds his bullets might make as they bounced, harmlessly, off of the tank.

            The army part of his brain then responded that the musical part should keep quiet, it wasn’t helping anything.  The musical part then stood up on the table, spilling its drink on the army part and insisting that it wasn’t hurting anybody.  The army part insisted that this was no time for flights of fancy and that the musical part should get down from the table and let it handle things.  The musical part replied ‘fine’, but insisted that it would continue to compose its’ magnum opus, ‘lead on tanks’ which would revolutionize the avant garde music scene.

            Meanwhile, Hernandez was frozen in his ready position, wondering why in the world the army part of his brain sounded like his Aunt Flores.

            As the musical part of his brain returned to its stupor, muttering something about proper instrumentation and samba rhythms, the army part of his brain resumed control.  It realized, much more quickly than he had, that his gun was probably going to be about as useful against the tank as the banana that he just realized he’d left in his closet back in his parent’s house.      Dropping the gun he sprang into action, breaking and running straight to the right and directly into the side door of the Humvee that had pulled up next to him while he had been focusing on the tank.

            He picked himself up and dusted himself off as Wu opened the door.  He wasn’t sure why he was dusting himself off, it wasn’t as if it did any good in this dust storm of a country.

             “Get in Hernandez!” Wu shouted.

            He needed no further encouragement, leaping headlong into the Humvee across the laps of Wu, Martins, and Rodriguez.

             “Gun it!” Rodriguez shouted as Wu slammed the door shut behind Hernandez.

            Jacobson didn’t need any encouragement and the Humvee darted forward, throwing Hernandez bodily backward into Martins, Wu, and Rodriguez’ faces.  In only seconds, they were back out of the canyon.  Jacobson wrestled with the wheel and the Humvee spun almost in place, turning to run along the side of the canyon.  The Humvee spun, but Hernandez didn’t, slamming his head against more sides of the Humvee than he’d realized that it had before he finally settled, dazed, on the floor of the back seat.

            Were they finally in the clear?

 

* * *

 

             “In the name of God and his holy beard!” Saif shouted as he gunned the engine.

            Abdul-aziz waited for the brief pressure of the acceleration to fade before he tried to sit up again.  He wasn’t entirely sure what Saif was babbling about, but the bird was finally out of his face and dust was merely falling on him instead of slithering its way into every orifice, so he was willing to go with it for the moment.

            The hatch had fallen shut behind him after he had fallen back inside, and he decided it was probably best not to open it again.  Instead, he twisted himself into a sitting position in the driver’s seat of the tank and strained to look out the little porthole.  The rock was still stuck in it, but he was able to push it out fairly easily and take a look outside.

            They were leaving the canyon, the landscape opening in a blank slate of nothingness all the way to the mountains in the horizon before them.  He wasn’t sure where the Americans were now, but he hadn’t heard the tank’s gun fire again, so he assumed that Saif was chasing them now.  His suspicions were confirmed when the tank veered sharply to the right and he caught sight of the American Humvee pulling away from them.

            His heart raced with excitement, the same excitement he remembered from battles with the Americans in earlier days.  This time he had them outgunned.  This time would be even better than it had been before.

             “Fire the gun Saif!” he shouted up into the turret, “Don’t let them get away!”

            He couldn’t tell if Saif heard him or not, but the gun certainly didn’t fire.  In fact, he couldn’t remember if it had been reloaded since he’d shot off that first round.  Grumbling, he snaked his way up into the turret.

            Saif was hunched over the controls, his knees hunched up to his shoulders so that his hands worked one set of controls and his feet another.  His face was pressed intently up to the port hole and he was so focused that Abdul-aziz doubted if the man was even aware of his presence.

            Ignoring him, Abdul-aziz popped open the breach of the main cannon.  An empty shell popped back out at him, confirming his suspicions.  Leaning back into the far reaches of the turret, he eased another shell out of its rack and turned back to the breach only to find that Saif was holding it closed with one of his feet.

             “What are you doing?” Abdul-aziz demanded.

             “Not yet,” Saif muttered, barely audible over the roar of the tank engine.

             “What do you mean not yet?” Abdul-aziz replied, “They’re getting away!”

             “It’s not God’s will,” Saif muttered.

             “And what do you know about God’s will?” Abdul-aziz shouted, “I am in command here and I order you to let me reload this gun.”

             “Not God’s will,” Saif muttered, shaking his head furiously even as he stayed hunched over the port hole, “God will provide.”

Abdul-aziz pulled at Saif’s foot, but the wiry man was surprisingly strong and he couldn’t get it off.

            Without any warning, Saif began chuckling.  Abdul-aziz glared at him, what was so funny?

             “God has provided,” he muttered, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

             “What do you mean we’re out of gas?” Martins shouted.

             “Don’t be upset with Jacobson,” Perchevsky chided gently, “He was just doing his part to stay on budget for the houseboat.”

            Hernandez was still on the floor of the backseat, wondering if he was still a bit woozy from the various blows to the head.  One thing he was sure of, though, was that they were slowing down.  The engine of the Humvee had quit a few seconds ago and he was pretty sure he could feel it slowly gliding to a stop.

             “What do we do?” Rodriguez asked.

             “Wait till we stop,” Perchevsky said, “Then pile out.  Rodriguez, don’t forget your heavy weapons.  We’ll head into the rocks and see if we can’t lay a trap for the tank.”

            They waited patiently as the Humvee rolled to a stop, then a motley crew sprang into action.  Wu and Martinez were out the door instantly with Martins hot on their heels.  Hernandez struggled to sit up and, instead of coming out of the Humvee with tactical precision the way he had always imagined it, he flopped like a boneless hamster onto the ground and rolled a few times before regaining control of himself.

             “Up you go,” Percehvsky said pleasantly, pulling Hernandez to his feet, “Everyone into the hills!”

            The group rushed into the hills as the tank approached.  Why wasn’t it firing at them?  It occurred to Hernandez that it hadn’t fired a shot since that first one.  He still wasn’t very clear on what had happened there, but it seemed as if a tank that was trying to kill them should be using its’, you know, tankiness.

            Instead, the tank simply continued to bear down on the Humvee as the group pushed into the hills, scrabbling over rocks and through small gulleys.  A loud crunching noise behind him caught Hernandez’ attention and he turned to see the tank rolling over the Humvee, squishing it beneath its treads like a soda can.  Hernandez grimaced; he wasn’t looking forward to walking all the way back to the base.

            On top of the Humvee, the structure still giving way and sinking below it like a sad balloon, the tank stopped.  Hernandez realized that the rest of the company were also, like him, hiding behind the cover of a few rocky crags and watching.  The turret of the tank rotated toward them and Hernandez ducked behind his rock.  He saw the others do the same and flinched as he heard a blood-curdling scream.

             “Don’t worry everyone,” Perchevsky’s cheery voice came back, “Martins is fine.  He just had a distressing thought about blood.”

            Hernandez rolled his eyes.  There wasn’t anything about this place that had been remotely normal since he had arrived, why should it start now?

 

* * *

 

             “Stay here,” Saif said to Abdul-aziz as he popped the hatch of the tank.

            He took off his pakol and tossed it up and out the hatch.  The loud metallic clang as a bullet ricocheted off the hatch made Abdul-aziz duck in cover, but Saif didn’t lose a moment, leaping out of the hatch before Abdul-aziz could even ask him where he was going.

            Abdul-aziz stared at the open hatchway in astonishment for a moment, then reached up his hand to close it.  The dent in the hatch from the bullet brought him up short.  Pulling off his scarf, he tossed it so that it caught on the latch and pulled the hatch closed.

            Well, he was on his own now, just as he had wanted the whole time.  If only he knew how to work this crazy thing.  It couldn’t be that hard, right?  Maybe he’d try the main gun again now that Saif wasn’t in his way.

            He reached down and picked up the shell from where it had fallen on the ground and shoved it into the breach of the gun.  Twisting the hatch shut, he turned to the controls.  This couldn’t be that hard, right?  He’d just try things and see what happened.

            He pressed hesitantly against one of the levers and the turret rotated.  He wondered idly if that was what had happened earlier to make him miss, but he didn’t dwell on it.  He knew how to do it now.  Grinning, he leaned over to the port hole and rotated the lever.  The Americans were hiding among the rocks out there, but that wouldn’t save them now.  He settled his sights on one of them that was peeking to look over the top of his rock and rested his finger on the trigger.

            He leaned back in the seat and felt something stir under against his back.  Before he even had time to wonder what it was, a squawking and flapping mass whirled around the small enclosure of the turret, swatting and scratching at his face as it passed.  He flailed around, trying to protect himself, and it occurred to him that he should have checked to make sure that bird from earlier had left the tank before he had closed the hatches.

 

* * *

 

             “I’m serious, someone jumped out of the tank and ran into the bushes,” Jacobson shouted.

             “That’s crazy,” Rodriguez shouted back, “Why would they leave a tank to go run around in the dirt?”

             “Is this the setup for another Federal Reserve lecture?” Wu asked, “Because I was sold when you told me about their links to the scorpion army.”

             “No,” Jacobson insisted,” someone threw a hat up to waste Chillingsworth’s shot and then scampered out.”

            Hernandez hesitated for a moment.  On the one hand, Jacobson sounded so sure of what he’d seen.  On the other hand, this was a man who had gone after him with a wrench when he had arrived because he hadn’t realized that the army he was in was actually a part of the government.

            Deciding to take Jacobson at his word, Hernandez risked a quick glance over the rock he was hiding behind.  He ducked down quickly again as he found himself looking straight down the barrel of the tank.  As the immediate burst of fear faded, he briefly began to wonder why the stinking thing never seemed to actually fire.  It was as if it was some kind of reality show where they throw a bunch of strangers together and see if they can literally scare the crap out of them.

            He didn’t have long to entertain that thought, though, as man dressed in loose pants, sandals, a loose shirt, and an Afghan head covering that he had learned was called a Pakol darted past him.

            The army part of his brain was active instantly, screaming at him to level his rifle and open fire, but the rest of the bar table that was apparently his brain was far too shocked to do just about anything at that moment.  So he stood there, slack jawed, as his brain rang with the sounds of the army part screaming and the musical part still drunkenly muttering about the waltz tempo.

            The cracking retort of a rifle snapped him out of it, a bullet bouncing loudly off of a rock as the Afghan disappeared behind another pile of rocks and dirt.  Martins screamed again, but Hernandez found that it didn’t seem to bother him anymore.  He wondered briefly if this was how Perchevsky managed it.

             “Move out!” Perchevsky barked, “Follow that man!”

            The bar that was Hernandez’s brain (he was still unsure about how that had happened) was still quiet with surprise, but his body was trained to obey orders.  Without hesitation, he pushed off of the rock he had been hiding behind and sprinted after the Afghan who was already practically lost to sight.

            It was at that moment that the tank fired.

            Hernandez stood, frozen in mid-step, as the retort of the cannon echoed around the canyon.  The dim patter of rocks and debris hitting the ground began while the sound still rang and continued for another second or so before it too faded away.

            Hernandez looked down at himself.  He wasn’t dead.  At least, he thought he wasn’t dead.  Really, he wasn’t sure how he would know.  He didn’t see his own body or a smoking black hole on the ground, so he assumed he was still corporeal.

            He looked back at the tank.  It looked normal enough for a tank, the barrel still smoking from the shot it had just fired.  He just wasn’t quite sure why the barrel was pointing off somewhere above and to the left of him.  He followed the line where it was aiming and sure enough, he found the smoking crater where the shell had exploded.

             “Come on Hernandez,” Wu grunted, maneuvering past him, “Get your ass in gear before that thing reloads and fires again.”

            Hernadez shook his head to clear it and followed Wu.  The man was right to be concerned, but Hernandez still wondered why, both times the tank had fired, it had gone high and to the left.

 

* * *

 

            Damn that bird!

            This was the only thought going through Abdul-aziz’s mind right now as he nursed a brand new beak bite on his left upper arm and a neat set of scratches on his cheek.

            The bird had gone away again, but Abdul-aziz watched warily around him.  This old Soviet tank was just pipes and random boxes throughout the entire interior, there were far too many places in here were that bird could hide, just waiting to strike again.

            Still keeping a watchful eye out, he popped open the breech of the gun and slipped in another shell.  This time he would get them.

            Only this time he wouldn’t, because when he looked back out the small porthole, they were gone.

            He blinked a few times in surprise; where had they gone?  He rotated the turret a few times to take a better look around, but there was no one out there anymore.

            He settled down to take stock.  Perhaps they were just hiding out there among the rocks.  Perhaps they’d gone chasing after Saif.  Where had that idiot gone off to anyways?

            He checked one more time out the porthole.  Just the rocks and the wind out there right now.  He was just about to turn away when a quick flash of movement caught his eye.

            It was just behind a rock, not too far away.  He wasn’t sure what it was but…

            There it was again, this time he was sure it was an American soldier; no one else was stupid enough to carry that much crap around with them everywhere they went.  A second flash of movement in the same place told him there was more than one.  They were headed up the hillside, probably chasing that idiot Saif.  At least he was finally making himself useful, even if it was only as a decoy.

            Carefully checking the terrain of the hillside, Abdul-aziz settled the cannon on a part of the hill he was fairly certain they would have to pass through as they made their way up.  He didn’t have to wait long, it was only a few seconds later that a flash of movement between the bushes let him know that the Americans were there.

            He pressed down on the trigger and the cannon roared.  A large explosion shook the hillside, throwing rocks and debris in all directions.  He pressed his face closer to the porthole, trying to see if he’d gotten any of the Americans, but at that moment, an angry fluttering and squawking blur sent him reeling back, tripping and falling down the opening into the lower compartment of the tank.

            As he cowered away from the enraged bird at the bottom of his tank, he through briefly to himself that it had probably been a mistake to create that much of a racket while the demonic creature was still inside.

 

* * *

 

            Hernandez looked up at a clear blue sky.  It was so quiet now, he wondered if he was having a nice time relaxing on a beach somewhere.

            No, that wouldn’t make sense, he’d remember if he was doing that.  Perhaps he should think about it, surely he could figure out what was going on here.

            The last thing he remembered was running along the hillside of some barren rock in Afghanistan.  He had a vague recollection of a tank at some point, and then he was moving backward away from something that was pushing him.

            Why was it so quiet now?  He strained to listen and eventually a ringing sound began to play in his ears.  A face appeared in front of him, a long, thin, face topped with an Army helmet bearing Captain’s bars.  He had a vague feeling he should recognize this guy.

            The man was shouting, and in a dim way, at the very edges of his hearing, Hernandez could make out what he was saying.

             “Martins,” the man was saying, “Get over here, there’s no blood.”

            Martins.  He had a vague thought that the name should mean something to him.  Was he a doctor of some kind?  He had a dim feeling that if Martins was a doctor, he was a bad one.

            Instead of a doctor, another soldier came into view, this one with a bright white armband that had a red plus sign on it.

             “No blood,” Martins said, “Thank God, a civilized injury for once.”

            As he knelt down beside Hernandez, he dug in his pack for something.  Hernandez picked up his arm and held it out to look at.  He wasn’t sure why he did that, perhaps just to be sure he could.

            He looked back over as the first man shook him and looked him straight in the eye with a kindly smile.

             “You’re going to be all right Hernandez,” he was saying, still dim and distant in his ears, “All your bits are still there and Martins will get you fixed up with the kit.”

             “Okay,” Hernandez said.  At least he thought he said it.  The words may not have actually made it out of his mouth, but he was certainly thinking them.

             “Here we go,” Martins announced, pulling out a syringe of some kind, “This should get him settled.”

            Hernandez hoped that Martins wasn’t going to stick him with that thing, he hated needles.  He barely had time to blink in panic before Martins quickly and expertly stuck him with it.

            He wondered briefly what was in the syringe before his head flopped back and the world slowly faded to black.

 

* * *

 

            He woke up on a hilltop under a small shelter.  His arm was in a cast and held to his chest with a sling and his foot was in a boot of some kind.  Outside, all he could see was a barren, rocky landscape and a clear blue sky.

            He grunted with effort as he rolled over.  Next to him was a radio, a canteen of water, and a nicely prepared MRE.  Grunting with quite a bit more effort, he got himself to a sitting position on the cot he’d been lying on, and began to eat the MRE with his one good hand, occasionally washing down dry parts of it with the canteen.  He was nearly finished with his food before he noticed that there was a neatly prepared envelope with his name on it leaned elegantly against the military radio.

            Still a little clumsy, he reached over and opened it, pulling out a neatly folded piece of paper with a letter written in a sophisticated, flowing script.  It had been a while since he had had to read in cursive, since early in middle school actually, but he remembered enough of it to read through it.

 

Dear Private Hernandez,

            We’re sorry to leave you without any notice, but we didn’t see any other way.  The houseboat we have had our eye on has suddenly been offered for sale at a steep discount and we have elected to purchase it and pursue our dreams.

            I hope that your time with our little group, short though it was, was a positive experience for you.  We certainly enjoyed your company and were very impressed with your capabilities when the moment called for it.

            As there is no one left to man the outpost, and there wasn’t a particularly pressing reason to man the outpost to begin with, we have elected to inform the army that a presence in this location will no longer be required.  We radioed headquarters in Bagram AFB for a helicopter to come pick you up, but if they aren’t here by the time you awake, you may wish to use the radio we left you to check up on them and make sure they are on their way.

            We have left you a good supply of MREs in the little tent we set up for you and there is a large tank of water as well.  I hope that it will keep you in good spirits until the army sends a pick-up crew.

            It was a pleasure to have met you, and wherever the world may take you the men of Epsilon-Zeta Company wish you all the best.

 

Sincerely,

Captain Nathaniel Perchevsky

and the men of Epsilon-Zeta Company

 

            Hernandez finished reading the letter and stared at it for several minutes.  He wasn’t sure what had just happened.  He had a vague recollection of them discussing a houseboat at some point, and there were all those discussions about the proper budget, but he hadn’t assumed that they were serious about all that.  He tried to wrack his brain for the place they had said they’d be going, but he couldn’t quite remember it.

            He was only jolted from his confused thoughts when he heard the sounds of a helicopter’s rotors.  He looked out of the tent to see a Chinook circling his location, preparing to land.

            He looked back down at the letter for a second before folding it neatly, returning it to its envelope, and tucking it carefully inside his coat.  This had been one of the strangest experiences of his life and he wasn’t sure anything he did would ever top it.  Maybe that was for the best; he wasn’t sure how many more days like the one he’d just had he could survive.

 

* * *

 

            Abdul-aziz drove the tank along a long, featureless track of desert.  It was nearly two-hundred kilometers from here to the nearest Taliban stronghold, but at least he didn’t have to worry about running out of fuel.

            In the upper compartment, sleeping, was Rahim Khatib.  Abdul-aziz had found Rahim when he returned to where he and Saif had hidden the fuel truck; Rahim was tied up behind a rock near a bush and had managed to get free enough to stand where Abdul-aziz could see him.

            It turned out that Rahim was the Taliban soldier that Abdul-aziz had been sent there to command, apparently Saif had tricked him and hidden him away shortly before his own arrival.  Ever since then, Abdul-aziz had been wracking his brain, trying to remember everything he could about that strange man.

            He was Pashto, that was for sure, and he was clearly devout, although upon further thought Abdul-aziz couldn’t say for sure that the religion to which he was devoted was Islam.  That was it, that was all that he had learned about the man in their short time together.  He had been so irritated with him that he had quickly abandoned all attempts to get to know the man and had just worked around him as much as possible.

            He let out an aggravated sigh, Taliban command was going to have a lot of questions, but he wasn’t going to have any answers for them.  Briefly, he wondered if Saif had found whatever it was he had been looking for.  Oddly enough, he found himself hoping that he had and that they would cross paths again sometime.


End file.
